National Register of Historic Places Inventory -- Nomination Form

Form No. 10-300 (Rev. 10-74) THEME: 19th-century Architecture UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF THH INTERIOR NATIONAL PARK SERVICE NATIONAL REGISTER OF HISTORIC PLACES INVENTORY -- NOMINATION FORM SEE INSTRUCTIONS IN HOW TO COMPLETE NATIONAL REGISTER FORMS TYPE ALL ENTRIES -- COMPLETE APPLICABLE SECTIONS [NAME HISTORIC Reliance Building AND/OR COMMON Reliance Building LOCATION STREET & NUMBER 32 North State Street _NOT FOR PUBLICATION CITY, TOWN CONGRESSIONAL DISTRICT Chicago VICINITY OF 7th STATE CODE COUNTY CODE Illinois Cook CLASSIFICATION CATEGORY OWNERSHIP STATUS PRESENT USE _DI STRICT —PUBLIC X.OCCUPIED —AGRICULTURE —MUSEUM ^L-BUILDINGIS) ^PRIVATE —UNOCCUPIED X_COMMERCIAL —PARK _ STRUCTURE —BOTH —WORK IN PROGRESS —EDUCATIONAL —PRIVATE RESIDENCE _SITE PUBLIC ACQUISITION ACCESSIBLE _ ENTERTAINMENT —RELIGIOUS —OBJECT —IN PROCESS X-YES: RESTRICTED —GOVERNMENT —SCIENTIFIC —BEING CONSIDERED — YES: UNRESTRICTED —INDUSTRIAL —TRANSPORTATION _NO —MILITARY _ OTHEFf. [OWNER OF PROPERTY NAME (See Continuation Sheet) STREET & NUMBER »», . CITY, TOWN ^ - STATE __ VICINITY OF LOCATION OF LEGAL DESCRIPTION COURTHOUSE, Cook County Recorder of Deeds REGISTRY OF DEEDS, ETC. STREET &NNUMBER County BuiIding CITY, TOWN STATE Chicaao Illinois Q REPRESENTATION IN EXISTING SURVEYS \ TITLE Historic American Buildings Survey DATE 'September 1963 -^FEDERAL STATE COUNTY _LOCAL DEPOSITARY FOR SURVEY RECORDS National Park Service, Department of the Interior * CITY, TOWN STATE « Washington D.C. * * * /***\ _ DESCRIPTION CONDITION CHECK ONE CHECK ONE EXCELLENT —DETERIORATED —UNALTERED 2LORIGINALSITE DATE- GOOD —RUINS ^.ALTERED —MOVED _UNEXPOSED DESCRIBE THE PRESENT AND ORIGINAL (IF KNOWN) PHYSICAL APPEARANCE The original building on this site survived the 1871 fire although one-third of the building was destroyed. The building was purchased by William E. Hale in 1882 from the First National Bank of Chicago. Root began plans for a 16 story building in 1890. The bank relocated from the first floor in 1890 but leases on the four floors above ran until 1894. Osmund Overby in his HABS report (1963) gives a vivid description of the unusual way the Reliance went up "As a result, work was begun on the ground floor and foundations in 1890 while the upper stories and their tenants were held up by jack screws. In 1894, these were demolished and thirteen stories of steel construction were added to the completed ground floor without disturbing its tenant. It took less than two days to erect each story. The building was completely closed in on November 8, 1894, and was due to be occupied January 1, 1895. From 1890 to 1894 Root's original plans had been changed by Atwood so that the resulting upper stories are of cream-white terra cotta while the original first story was of polished Scotch granite." The building is rectangular: 55 feet 10 inches on the State Street side and 84 feet 10 inches on the Washington Street side. It rises 15 stories to 200 feet in height. The base is a spread foundation with beam and rail grillage. The construction is iron-skeleton with irregular bay spacing with non-bearing masonry walls on south and west sides. The ground floor contained large areas of glass framed in granite above there is open grill work of windows framed in glazed white terra cotta. This terra cotta cladding was made in the Gothic mode with quatrefoils, cusps, etc. This tile work sheathing and the windows enclosed the structural frame producing a "curtain wall" building. The roof is flat but the original ornamental cornice is gone. It was called a "porcelain tower" by contemporary critic; the tiles were made by the North Western Terra Cotta Company. The ornamental iron and elevators were made by the Winslow Brothers. (Some of the iron work and polished granite have been removed probably when the building was sold in 1923 or later.) The cornice was removed after 1948. In spite of the alterations on the interior and the intrusive shop windows on street level the Reliance Building remains one of the classic structure, in the evolution of 20th century architecture. 01 SIGNIFICANCE PERIOD AREAS OF SIGNIFICANCE -- CHECK AND JUSTIFY BELOW —PREHISTORIC _ARCHEOLOGY-PREHISTORIC —COMMUNITY PLANNING —LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTURE —RELIGION _1400-1499 —ARCHEOLOGY-HISTORIC —CONSERVATION _LAW —SCIENCE _1500-1599 _AGRICULTURE —ECONOMICS —LITERATURE —SCULPTURE _1600-1699 ^ARCHITECTURE —EDUCATION —MILITARY —SOCIAL/HUMANITARIAN _1 700-1799 _ART —ENGINEERING —MUSIC —THEATER —X1800-1899 J?COMMERCE —EXPLORATION/SETTLEMENT —PHILOSOPHY —TRANSPORTATION — 1900- —COMMUNICATIONS —INDUSTRY —POLITICS/GOVERNMENT _OTHER (SPECIFY) —INVENTION SPECIFIC DATES 1890-1895 BUILDER/ARCHITECT Burnham and Root, D. H. Burnham and Company STATEMENT OF SIGNIFICANCE The Reliance Building is one of the key monuments in the development of modern architecture. The "Chicago School" or style, grew as the result of the building boom following the fire of 1871 and reached its zenith in the 1890' s the Reliance is a simple, honest expression of these functional commercial structures. Carl Condit has written of this early skyscraper "If any work of structural art in the Nineteenth Century anticipated the future, it is this one. The building is the triumph of the structuralist and functionalist approach of the "Chicago School."! This building is a refined version of an earlier "Chicago" type, Holabird and Roche's Tacoma Building, constructed in 1887 (demolished 1929). In the Tacoma all windows in the bays were double hung and remained isolated design elements- Reliance has bays almost entirely filled in with glass; "Chicago windows" of a large fixed central pane framed by narrow double-hung windows that open, form bands of glass one above the other that become the body of the building itself. "The Reliance is not, like the Crystal Palace, a passing sensation produced for a exposition. It is a utilitarian structure commissioned as an office building, and it has actively used as such since its completion..... In its grace and airiness, in the purity and exactitude of its proportions and details, in the brilliant perfection of its transparent elevations, it stands today as an exciting exhibition of the potential kinesthetic expressiveness of the structural art. Although it is outrageously disfigured by signs and by a "modernized" base, the essential beauty of this slim glass tower still reveals that it has its place....as a witness to the best of the spirit of the nineteenth century." Begun in 1890 as a remodelling of an earlier structure by John Root of the Firm of Burnham and Root, only two stories had been completed when Root died in 1891. Revised plans for the upper floors were done in 1894 by Charles A. Atwood, chief designer for D. H. Burnham and Company. 1Condit, Carl, The Chicago School of Architecture, University of Chicago Press, 1964. 2 Ibid p. 111. IMAJOR BIBLIOGRAPHICAL REFERENCES (See Continuation Sheet) ^GEOGRAPHICAL DATA ACREAGE OF NOMINATED PROPERTY _________________ UTM REFERENCES A| . I I I . I . I I . 1 , I . , I _____ ZONE EASTING NORTHING ZONE EASTING NORTHING ' cl i I 1 I , I , , I I , I . I , , I D| , I I I . I , . I I , I , I . , I VERBAL BOUNDARY DESCRIPTION ~ ~~~~~—————————————————• Lot 1 of Assessor's Resubdivision of Sub-lots 1 to 5 of Assessor's Division of Lots 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5 of Block 58. Original Town Section 9, township 39 North, Range 14, East of the Third Principal Meridian. LIST ALL STATES AND COUNTIES FOR PROPERTIES OVERLAPPING STATE OR COUNTY BOUNDARIES STATE CODE COUNTY CODE STATE CODE COUNTY CODE FORM PREPARED BY NAME/TITLE Carolina Pitts, Architectural Historian_______________________________ ORGANIZATION DATE Historic Sites Survey, National Park Service__________July 1975_______________ STREET& NUMBER TELEPHONE 1100 L Street N.W.________________________________202-523-5464_________ CITY OR TOWN STATE Washington_______________________________________D.C. 20240_________ STATE HISTORIC PRESERVATION OFFICER CERTIFICATION THE EVALUATED SIGNIFICANCE OF THIS PROPERTY WITHIN THE STATE IS: NATIONAL_X_ STATE___ LOCAL___ As the designated State Historic Preservation Officer for the National Historic Preservation Act of 1966 (Public Law 89-665). I hereby nominate this property for inclusion in the National Register and certify that it has been evaluated according to the criteria and procedures set forth by the National Park Service. FEDERAL REPRESENTATIVE SIGNATURE TITLE DATE Form No. 10-300a (Rev. 10-74) UNITED STATtSDhPARTMLNTO* THLiMhRIOR NATIONAL PARK SERVICE NATIONAL REGISTER OF HISTORIC PLACES INVENTORY -- NOMINATION FORM DATE ENTERED Reliance Building. 111. COIMTtNUATSON SHEET___________ ITEM NUMBER 4 RAGE Fee: Trustees of Central States, S.E. & S.W. Areas Health, Welfare and Pension Fund Mr. Francis J. Murtha 8550 Bryn Mawr Avenue Chicago, Illinois 60602 Lease: Reliance Associates Inc. Mr. Joseph G. Abramson 122 East 42nd Street New York, New York Sub-Lease: State Street Properties Inc. Mr. Sam Karoll 32 N. State Street Chicago, Illinois 60602 Trust No. 20550 LaSalle National Bank Mr. William B. Higginbotham Vice President 135 S. LaSalle Street Chicago, Illinois 60603 Form No. 10-300a (Rev. 10-74) UNITED STATES DbPARTMbNT Ol THh INThRIOR NATIONAL PARK SERVICE NATIONAL REGISTER OF HISTORIC PLACES INVENTORY -- NOMINATION FORM Reliance Building, Illinois CONT! NUAT1ON SHEET ITEM NUMBER 8 PAGE 2 The use of terra cotta cladding was a great innovation, a building could be kept clean and it was light. Louis Sullivan was to use it a few years later on the Carson, Pirie, Scott and Company Building and the

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